A good book, some tea and a little bit of earth changing advice

I joined a library today. The first time I’ve had a library card since school, and it was a really great feeling. Books are so expensive in SA, and we buy them and they get read once and sit on a bookshelf, waiting for someone to pick them up again. And today I picked up a great book. Well two great books – but my enjoyment of Terry Pratchett is maybe not so well suited to the title of this post… The more relevant book is called ‘The New Energy Book for Urban Development in South Africa’ and it’s written by Sarah Ward, who I had been told had written a book. It’s the second edition, published in 2008 and so it’s up to date and a great read. It’s so easy to read actually. The energy crisis and global warming are topics that can be so confusing, and we’re often pumped full of facts and figures, which makes it hard to link it back to our lives. There are simple tips for cutting down on our own personal energy consumption and good ideas for people living without easy access to electricity. It also explains what renewable energies are and what kind of technologies are currently available to harness them.

It’s nice to read a book that’s actually aimed at the South African public, and is not some text book from Western Europe saying how we should all spend hundreds of Euros, when most of us don’t actually have that. The book is published by Sustainable Energy Africa, who are based in The Green Building in Westlake, which, from what I can tell seems to be a hub of renewable and sustainable energy fundis. Windlab, who I mentioned in the previous post, is also based there. The Green Building is worthy of a post on its own… but here’s a link for now

http://www.sustainable.org.za/greenbuilding/index.htm

The thing is that I picked this book up just because it looked interesting and only found out who had written it when I got home. Turns out I’m meeting with her next week. Such good timing, I couldn’t have planned it better.

A bit about the book:

http://www.sustainable.org.za/resources/the-new-energy-book.html

Sustainable Energy Africa

http://www.sustainable.org.za/ It’s worth taking a look. Time for some tea, and a good read…

Vivi